Elliot Kallen — Turning Grief Into Purpose: How Elliot Kallen is Combating Teen Suicide

[00:00:00] Elliot Kallen: You never get rid of the hole in your heart when you lose a child, but you need to put one foot in front of the other and focus in on who is still remaining, who is still alive, who can you have an impact on, and get beyond your own grief.

[00:00:12] Elliot Kallen: It’s really tough to do. I could tell you that your children will get over losing their sibling to suicide. They will. They will move on with families, but they will not get over ever losing their sibling, followed by their mother. Ever. Can’t do that.

[00:00:29] Intro: Do you think money takes up more life space than it should? On this show, we discuss with and share stories from artists, authors, entrepreneurs, and advisors about how they mindfully minimize the time and energies. Spent thinking about money. Join your host, Jonathan DeYoe, and learn how to put money in its place and get more out of [00:01:00] life.

[00:01:02] Jonathan DeYoe: Hello and welcome back. On this episode of the Mindful Money Podcast,

[00:01:05] Jonathan DeYoe: I’m chatting with Elliot. I should have asked Kallen?

[00:01:08] Elliot Kallen: Perfect.

[00:01:10] Jonathan DeYoe: Perfect. Elliot has built an international organization. He’s been the CEO of two companies, brings over 30 years of passion and business experience to his financial planning and advising practice,

[00:01:20] Jonathan DeYoe: Prosperity Financial Group. He’s a frequent guest on podcasts,. It’s good to have someone that’s done this before as a guest, and he’s on radio shows on motivation, leadership, charitable work, and all kinds of different financial subjects. This is gonna be a little different podcast because I wanted to talk to him about, and this is kind of a return to some of the past here, loss and grief, never getting over it, but incorporating that loss into life and into our impact. As many of you know, the Mindful Money podcast exists as a way for me to carry out one of the goals my brother and I had in 2021 before he drowned. And Elliot lost his youngest son to suicide in 2015. This led to founding A Brighter Day charity, [00:02:00] which is a 501c3 that brings stress and depression resources to teens and their parents with a goal of stopping teen suicide, which is actually as the case may be as happenstance, was one of the things that my brother worked on as well.

[00:02:14] Jonathan DeYoe: I wanted to talk to Elliot about meaning and about impact. Elliot, thank you so much for coming on. Welcome to the Mindful Money Podcast.

[00:02:20] Elliot Kallen: Thanks Jonathan, and thanks for having me on. It’s great.

[00:02:23] Jonathan DeYoe: Yeah. Thank you. Thank you. First, you know, tell us where you call home, where you calling in from?

[00:02:28] Elliot Kallen: So I live in the East Bay of San Francisco. I’m originally from New York. I still say coffee talk in the office. I moved out here in 93 when my wife was pregnant with our twins. We had one more. It’s been great. It’s a silly place to live ’cause of the cost of living. And I tell people that if my dad were alive today and he knew what he spent as a World War II, greatest generation person to what he saved and then what I make to what I saved, he probably hit me in the side of the head.

[00:02:53] Jonathan DeYoe: So, where’d you move out from? Where’d you grow up?

[00:02:56] Elliot Kallen: I grew up in a town called West Orange, New Jersey,

[00:02:59] Jonathan DeYoe: New [00:03:00] Jersey.

[00:03:00] Jonathan DeYoe: Okay.

[00:03:00] Elliot Kallen: is, which is a suburb of Newark.

[00:03:03] Jonathan DeYoe: So I grew up in Rapid City, South Dakota. Uh, I also, I lived in Berkeley. I just moved to Oakland. Um, so we, we live in the same area, right? Paid the same prices and

[00:03:11] Elliot Kallen: We do, we do.

[00:03:12] Jonathan DeYoe: My dad had the same experience. He, he, he basically did slap me upside the head the first time I bought this was 1994, I bought a, I bought a condo in Emeryville, 380 square feet for like $110,000 then, which was the price of my parents’ four bedroom house in Red City, South Dakota.

[00:03:28] Jonathan DeYoe: And he was like, what are you thinking? Like, insanity. Uh, so yeah, totally normal, uh, totally normal here in the Bay Area.

[00:03:35] Elliot Kallen: Yeah, I think, you know, I, when I first moved out here and my ex-wife, um, my kid’s mom was from California. That’s how we ended out here. You know, it’s a beautiful place to be. I didn’t know any place. She said, we’re moving to the East Bay, and I thought, good. The West Bay, san the Pacific Ocean, the East Bay is like Tahoe.

[00:03:52] Elliot Kallen: I’m gonna ski every day. , and that’s what I thought. I didn’t, I didn’t even know there was an InBetween to that,

[00:03:55] Jonathan DeYoe: Yeah,

[00:03:57] Elliot Kallen: but I, it’s a beautiful place to live. I [00:04:00] don’t know if I’d wanna be here for the rest of my life, but look, I own a wine tasting room. I have a beautiful home. It’s appreciated to some stupid numbers in Lafayette, so it’s hard to leave also.

[00:04:11] Jonathan DeYoe: Absolutely. It’s difficult and, and there’s brilliant people here. I mean, I love the conversations I have. I love, I love just the people I get to meet here, so it’s, you know, and the food. You’re never gonna find this food anywhere else.

[00:04:22] Elliot Kallen: You gotta spend more time in New York.

[00:04:24] Jonathan DeYoe: I just, I literally had a New Yorker. I had someone that lives in Manhattan on the podcast this morning, and she said, you know what she misses or what she likes when she comes out here, burritos.

[00:04:33] Jonathan DeYoe: She says she cannot get a good burrito in New York. Which I was like, really? That’s, that can’t

[00:04:37] Elliot Kallen: well, well, you got White Castle and you’ve got the best corn, beef and pastrami in the world coming outta New York. So

[00:04:42] Elliot Kallen: I.

[00:04:42] Jonathan DeYoe: sure, for sure. I looping back. What, so what did you learn growing up, on the East Coast New Jersey? What did you learn about money and entrepreneurship?

[00:04:52] Elliot Kallen: Well, it’s very interesting here. It’s a great question to start off with. I’ve been very fortunate with my parents who are long gone, you know, [00:05:00] almost 40 years now. Um, they, my dad was the World War’s greatest generation, world War II guy, and he had this saying that nothing makes up for hard work.

[00:05:11] Jonathan DeYoe: Mm-hmm.

[00:05:12] Elliot Kallen: And so you can’t, there’s no shortcut any, unfortunately, he raised three kids that were work became workaholics, so that’s just what he did.

[00:05:19] Elliot Kallen: But, so you might say, the devil on my left shoulder or the angel, depending on whatever point of view you wanna, is hard work. But my mother was an Auschwitz survivor from Europe, and her thing was, you could do better tomorrow than you did yesterday, and you could do better today than yesterday. And so every day when I’ve come to work now. This is company three, four, and five that I’ve started every day has been, how can I do better today than yesterday? How do I become a better person? How do we have become better at what I do? Whether it’s the financial side, like what you do or the nonprofit side, that’s sadly what I do. Uh, how do you do better? How do you, what’s the next step [00:06:00] to an evolution of the role that you do, the organization you touch, and for the organization itself?

[00:06:06] Elliot Kallen: Those are great roles that my parents probably inadvertently and unintentionally passed on to their kids.

[00:06:12] Jonathan DeYoe: Yeah. So how much time do you spend doing nonprofit work versus working at the working in the office? Uh, as an advisor.

[00:06:20] Elliot Kallen: Well, are, are you talking about a hundred hour work week? ’cause I don’t know what 40 hours is.

[00:06:24] Jonathan DeYoe: Yeah. Yeah, exactly.

[00:06:25] Jonathan DeYoe: No, I.

[00:06:27] Elliot Kallen: I put about 60 to 70 hours of work every week. So I would say I split about 40% of it in my charity trying to figure out how to do that better. And, and a little less taxing. And the rest isn’t my business.

[00:06:38] Elliot Kallen: ’cause it deserves it. We’re, we’re a billion dollar office. We deserve more time.

[00:06:42] Jonathan DeYoe: Yeah. More people maybe. I don’t know. , I’m just thinking back to as a kid, . You’ve got these work hard lessons. You’ve got these do better lessons. Anything specific? Like what was the conversation around money like at the dinner table, you know, as a kid in your household growing up?

[00:06:58] Elliot Kallen: Well, so my dad never made [00:07:00] much money in his life. He was blue collar all the way, maybe made 40,000 at the top of his earnings, maybe. Never really had a lot. I didn’t know that. I didn’t understand that. We lived in a small house about 1500 square feet. I didn’t know it was small. I knew I was loved.

[00:07:14] Elliot Kallen: That’s what I do. And for my mother, they came outta poverty. They all came outta the Great Depression. So their thing was that we are only one month away or one bad decision away from having a great depression again. They had that insecurity on that. So it was all about savings. So when I was in my twenties, my mother came to me and said she had listened to some talk show, some Bernie Meltzer guy in New York City, and who said, if you put away $2,000 a year, that was when I started the IRAs and it grows to 8%.

[00:07:45] Elliot Kallen: And you do that every year to your 65, you will have a million dollars, and that’s all you’ll ever need in your entire life. Of course, we live in California, a million dollars won’t make it through your retirement anymore. , but that’s what they used to say. But my dad had another opinion on that too. [00:08:00] He would say, I wanna talk to you about the difference of being wealthy and the difference of being rich. And we will never be wealthy, but we will always be rich. And he was talking about giving back. He was talking about what are you doing with your relatives who really need their help? What are you doing with charities that need their need, your help that you could spend a Saturday with a cousin that helped build bicycles?

[00:08:21] Elliot Kallen: ’cause he owns a bicycle shop, and can’t afford to hire anybody. So you go build it for him and I’ll buy you lunch ’cause you didn’t pay, get paid for that stuff.

[00:08:28] Elliot Kallen: Or what can you give to help an ambulance? ’cause they need money to help you buy a private ambulance. Can you give, you know, , your change every Friday?

[00:08:35] Elliot Kallen: Put it in a box for them. And so it was all about giving back and then doing well. And you know, my mother had this attitude ’cause her dad was the head librarian in Vienna before World War II plus to make something big of yourself, do something really big. Don’t be an Indian, be a chief. And don’t be the middle of the pack either.

[00:08:53] Elliot Kallen: Don’t get in a pack or leave the pack, but don’t be in the middle. I. And those are life lessons.

[00:08:58] Jonathan DeYoe: Yeah, good [00:09:00] lessons. We’re gonna get into the importance of sort of impact , as a business owner, , you know, the importance of having purpose and helping other people achieve their purpose, et cetera. But , before we get there, give us a sense of your career track. , you ran some big organizations, you’ve done some other things before this.

[00:09:13] Jonathan DeYoe: What brought you to sort of financial services and then, , tell us the story about the, starting of the nonprofit as well.

[00:09:19] Elliot Kallen: Sure. And I started at , big accounting. , it was a terrible job for me. I won’t mention their name ’cause I thought they were a terrible company too, but that’s a different issue. , it wasn’t for me. My dad was trying to talk me out of it. He was not a Wellman by the time I graduated, , college that was already very sick. , and he said, , you have a dual major from Rutgers. You got accounting and economics. You’re the kind of person that should be in front of a room, not at your desk with a calculator. , and so he was right and I was wrong ’cause. One, if I went into economics, I would’ve had to get a master’s, and I won instant money in accounting and it was a mistake. So I left them and started an industrial packaging business. I did that for five years. I sold that in 1987. I was running outta money. We were just growing [00:10:00] so fast, 30, 40% a year that I was just blowing through cash. I didn’t understand in my twenties what burn rate meant, but we all know that now. And then I went into the environmental cleanup business.

[00:10:11] Elliot Kallen: I did that for quite some time. Over a thousand, , people working for me in those days. And I sold that and I made a decision that I wanted to get back into or get into financial services with one of the big firms, Lincoln Merrill Lynch, , Dean Witter, EF Hutton, , Payne Weber, those kind of companies. I met with a whole bunch of them.

[00:10:31] Elliot Kallen: Shearon was a family friend. I met with them in Florida and I didn’t like anything I heard. My wife at the time got pregnant with my twins and said, let’s move to California. And I met with Lincoln When I came out here, they had a little ad in the paper, probably no more than two inches large. The guy was in the Bronx, New York.

[00:10:47] Elliot Kallen: We talked the same language. , they spent eight hours interviewing me because they kept bringing everybody in. At the end, they say, we want you to run our business division. Start it and run it. I worked at San [00:11:00] Ramon at that point. I was living in Danville.

[00:11:01] Elliot Kallen: That’s one town away. And I had to get directions on how to get there. I knew nothing California. , but I started, it started to grow, it started to do a ton of cold calling. My thing was, if there was an, if you advertise your personal services in the local paper, the Contra Costa Times, the San Ramone Times. , the Jewish Times, anything you look advertise in, I would call you and say, Hey, I’m brand new. Can we network together? And I got enough yeses. I got a lot of nos. I led the Office of NOS for a long time, but I got enough yeses to start building a business. Did that for six years. Then we took the entire company,, the Lincoln had really changed, , and merged with Cigna, and it’s a different company at that time. With the entire company and began Prosperity Financial Group, the company we are today. Now that, and Prosperity Wealth Management combined are a billion dollars in assets. and it’s been a pretty amazing ride. I started a charity in 2016 following the suicide of my younger son at the University of Montana. , , he walked in front of a truck and took his [00:12:00] life. , pretty horrible gruesome, just absolutely gruesome story about identifying the body. If, you know, after a 40 foot truck just flattened him. Literally like a cartoon, but in a six page suicide note to us, Jonathan, which we received Federal Express before we found out he was dead. , he wrote, mom and Dad, I’ve been thinking about this for a long time. I never would’ve told you how I felt. I never would’ve asked for your help, and I never would’ve taken your help. And it was on that basis that we wanted to give back and do something, my wife and I, to change the lives of teens and their families by stopping suicide.

[00:12:35] Elliot Kallen: I. And of course you can. You can only stop so many of them. You can’t stop all of them.

[00:12:40] Elliot Kallen: And we started by creating resources, and then there’s resources came in with covid to really expanded resources and a robust website. And then a 24 7, all 50 state crisis texting hotline where teens can call in and text, talk to somebody literally all day, every single day of the week, including Christmas [00:13:00] or whatever day, and get some help. And if that didn’t work because they needed counseling, we te tag team and got ’em virtual counseling in all 50 states so they wouldn’t have to wait or get ’em inpatient counseling if we needed to do that in all 50 states. , and it’s grown quite a bit, so we now touch between four and 8,000 families every single month with one or two of our resources.

[00:13:22] Jonathan DeYoe: Wow. , so one of the questions that comes into my head is, is this. , first of all, I’m very sorry. I mean, it

[00:13:30] Jonathan DeYoe: sounds like terrible, terrible thing. . I remember my parents when my brother passed away at 46, like this was just a few years ago, and it’s de it destroyed. My mom and my dad who’d never shed a tear in his life.

[00:13:44] Jonathan DeYoe: He leaked for the first time. Like it wasn’t, you know, just he was a

[00:13:48] Jonathan DeYoe: big guy, like strong, but he started leaking. How did you transition from sort of grief to acceptance to this what I would call massive action like you’ve said. Okay. [00:14:00] Stake in the sand. We are, we are line in the sand. We are, we are changing this dynamic.

[00:14:05] Jonathan DeYoe: And you’ve done amazing things. How did you get from ouch to action?

[00:14:10] Elliot Kallen: Well, thank you and I’m sorry about your loss as well. , lots of tears.

[00:14:15] Elliot Kallen: Let’s not kid each other. There are plenty of tears here. we started talking about doing something with his body , under the southwest and Southwest cargo hole on the way home from the University of Montana.

[00:14:24] Elliot Kallen: , his mom and I literally had a discussion about starting a foundation or a charity to make a difference. We wanted to stop this devastation, this destruction from happening to other families, from what we were about to go through, and we knew we’d go through it. , so when I came back and you’re kind of really numb and staring at this computer screen, he’s my screensaver. You got two other kids you need to worry about. It’s a mess. You’re a mess, you’re a personal mess. But I knew I wanted to do something and I started to talk to people about it. I always thought maybe I would touch 5% of people who could understand what I [00:15:00] was talking about. And I realized that it’s 50, it was way higher and we sometimes we just cried together and we hugged. But I wanted to do that. And I met with several bands in the local area, Beatles cover bands, and Neil Diamond cover bands. And I thought, let’s do a musical based charity. And they said, you have it all wrong, Elliot. You need to be kids. Music for kids. Let teen bands play for teens. And that’s how we got started.

[00:15:23] Elliot Kallen: Giving out resources, creating teen concerts all around the Bay Area, but then Covid shut that down basically. And so we, we had to, you know, go with the flow if we wanted stay alive and stay relevant. And that’s how we turned into what we are today. But it’s always been something I’ve done. I’ve been president of Boys and Girls Club of Contra Costa County.

[00:15:42] Elliot Kallen: I’ve been , the president of a federation. I’ve been involved with American Cancer Society out here. I’ve been in charity my whole life. So charity work was not new to me. What was new is how personal it was.

[00:15:54] Jonathan DeYoe: Yeah, which makes it, which makes it all that, all, all that much bigger, like all that much more meaningful and, and [00:16:00] actually probably all that much harder ’cause Are you daily reminded then?

[00:16:03] Elliot Kallen: Oh my goodness. Every day I tell the story about Jake somewhere to a rotary,

[00:16:08] Elliot Kallen: to, to a video, to our video. Just got a million views last week telling the story about Jake. , yes, , and the way I deal with it, and I have my own issues is I end up going to the cemetery and that’s my moment to reground myself and have a cathartic moment. , but I have to do that because it’s the only way I can ground myself.

[00:16:27] Elliot Kallen: And you’re more emotional that than ever. You’re raw. I’m amazed how many little things get me upset with tears in my eyes that just the mention of child on TV or watching that his 8×10 picture is right next to the tv. Lots of times I’m just staring at him

[00:16:43] Jonathan DeYoe: Yep.

[00:16:43] Elliot Kallen: and there’s some shows I absolutely cannot watch. I can never watch a show where a child gets hurt

[00:16:48] Jonathan DeYoe: Nope. Okay. I barely can watch a show where they’re a, a parent talking to his teen about life. I. I barely can do that

[00:16:57] Elliot Kallen: ’cause the picture.

[00:16:59] Elliot Kallen: But it’s [00:17:00] important to do it and it’s important to keep going.

[00:17:02] Jonathan DeYoe: At what point , in the whole process, I, I know you talked about it on the way back from the, from Montana, , but what point did you say, okay, let’s, we’re gonna start this charity. We’re gonna, we’re gonna take these resources and make sure teens, and then did you work together?

[00:17:14] Jonathan DeYoe: Did you hire consultants? Did you and your wife work on it together? You know, how did that initially take shape?

[00:17:20] Elliot Kallen: My wife Tammy, and I did that. I’m fortunate enough that I like to ask people a lot of questions. I’ve got that a annoying New York personality where we just always in your face asking questions and I just asked everybody, principals and teachers and parents and you know, I got invited to some events, first to speak and then to listen.

[00:17:38] Elliot Kallen: And, you know, somebody came up to me, this was the real shocker. I think he’d be gone maybe three months. And Al Kalani’s High School in Lafayette had an event. For parents of survivors and for parents of children struggling with depression. And I thought, all right, I’ll go to it. I, I hate to go to group meetings like this because they’re cry fest. And so I went to [00:18:00] it and a man comes up to me that I had not met very nice man, Graham Wiseman, and said, Elliot, I want you to know that I introduced your son to my son the other day. And I said, what? Excuse me. And he said, my son is buried in the same cemetery as your

[00:18:18] Elliot Kallen: son. They’re about 50 feet away.

[00:18:21] Jonathan DeYoe: damn.

[00:18:22] Elliot Kallen: And I was shaken.

[00:18:23] Jonathan DeYoe: Yeah.

[00:18:24] Elliot Kallen: I was just shaken. And I said, I am so sorry. What happened? He said, we went to a movie. He was 16. We went to the movies. We came back and he hung himself in my wife’s closet

[00:18:37] Jonathan DeYoe: Uh,

[00:18:38] Elliot Kallen: and my wife has never been the same since.

[00:18:40] Jonathan DeYoe: yeah. How could she be?

[00:18:42] Elliot Kallen: She’s sure that was a message. That you were in my life or I hate you, or something like that. Probably neither one was true, but that was the message.

[00:18:49] Elliot Kallen: Probably wasn’t as well thought out as the mom thought, but that made me really think, oh my goodness, there’s a whole audience here that needs to hear that there’s hope on the other side of [00:19:00] this conversation. You can’t bring back anybody dead. The reality on the ground never changes.

[00:19:04] Elliot Kallen: No matter how much I talk about it. The what ifs and wish I could do a thousand things over doesn’t change the outcome, but that doesn’t mean I can’t affect. Who are in crisis but not grieving?

[00:19:17] Jonathan DeYoe: So how, how do people find you, , you know, before the sort of the crisis comes to fruit, you know, how do they know to look up a brighter day , and seek out the resources that you guys have?

[00:19:27] Elliot Kallen: Well, we’re almost every school knows about us. We’re all over Facebook. I get phone call. I used to get phone calls a week from a parent. Boy, , that’s a tough call at 2:00 AM Can you help my son, my daughter, not take their life. I’m right on the edge. Wow. Is that a tough call to make it two in the morning coming out of New Jersey for their five in the morning and things like that.

[00:19:47] Elliot Kallen: But we’re a little bit better about that now with a, with a staff and with a team of helping people out. But it’s a brighter day. Dot info. It’s elliot@abrighterday.info, two Ls and one t. , we talk to people all the time [00:20:00] about making a difference, and we talk to parents and school parents and PTAs and look, we’re never gonna be all things to all people, but we’re just gonna keep spreading that message.

[00:20:09] Jonathan DeYoe: Yeah. , what are the resources that you guys, I mean, you’ve cobbled together resources in every state from all kinds of different, , , service organizations. So if someone calls, what can they expect?

[00:20:18] Elliot Kallen: Well, the first thing everybody ought to do is go to the website.

[00:20:21] Elliot Kallen: Because there, most of these, the resources are written for parents, not for teens.

[00:20:25] Elliot Kallen: Teens are not great readers. , but they’re written for parents , A lot of what we write about every other week is about how to talk to your teen. Because here’s one of the differences. I can’t speak for your parents, but if I could speak for mine, and I imagine your parents were exactly the same. ’cause they sound about the same is when you came home from school, your dad said, how was school? And you answered like, okay, man, fine or okay, or whatever.

[00:20:46] Elliot Kallen: And that was basically the end of that conversation. And that’s what my dad was. How’s school? Fine. Okay, good. Good. That was it. But that’s not how this works anymore. . We teach parents how to ask better questions. Turn off the cell phone. No [00:21:00] cell phones at dinner. No cell phones on your weekly walk.

[00:21:02] Elliot Kallen: No cell phones on the way to go to, drive them around, like a taxi driver to a sporting event or something like that, that the conversation’s gotta continue. Gotta move on to what’s, what do you like and what do you don’t like? What’s your favorite class? Favorite teacher? What’s your least favorite?

[00:21:16] Elliot Kallen: How’s your best friend doing in class? How do you feel about that? You’ve gotta get better answers as a parent. Now, your teen is a terrible listener, period. They don’t like to read. They don’t like to listen. And you’re a thousand years old. We gotta admit that we have. So that’s why no cell phone distraction. Even if you wanna call the older brother or the grandma during dinner, no, no no cell phones at dinner.

[00:21:39] Jonathan DeYoe: It sounds preventative. You’re teaching how to, how to parent,

[00:21:43] Jonathan DeYoe: how to communicate with your teen to avoid the whole issue like the.

[00:21:46] Elliot Kallen: That’s where we do it. Then if you’re, you want to get your team some help, your team wants to get some help. What they like to do is they like to text. They are texting machines, your team. So we give them a, a texting program where they [00:22:00] can type the word brighter. BRIG HT ER. It’s set to a number where it’s on our website and 45 minutes at a clip, and then have to redial in again. They could get a texting conversation going with a trained professional all day and all night, and every holiday

[00:22:18] Jonathan DeYoe: So say that again. There’s a certain number you text

[00:22:20] Elliot Kallen: automatically on texting conversation.

[00:22:22] Jonathan DeYoe: I.

[00:22:23] Elliot Kallen: in the morning, five in the morning, three in the afternoon, walk outta chemistry class. I can’t handle chemistry with Dr. Jones anymore. I’m just gonna kill myself. I hate chemistry. Then text somebody and say, I can’t deal with chemistry anymore.

[00:22:36] Elliot Kallen: Can you help me? And you’ll have somebody in two minutes or less conversing with you for up to 45.

[00:22:42] Jonathan DeYoe: So, way you presented that, I can’t deal with chemistry anymore. One of the things my brother told me was he used to be on the hotline, the suicide hotlines, , and he was in the training for the suicide hotlines. He said something to the effect, it doesn’t matter what the issue is. to that person, that issue is the end of the world, and you just have to trust that it’s the end.

[00:22:59] Jonathan DeYoe: It could be [00:23:00] chemistry, it could be their nails came out wrong, could be their hair is a mess, could be whatever the thing is. It could be that , their mother just passed. It could be something very serious or it could be something just

[00:23:09] Elliot Kallen: He is

[00:23:09] Elliot Kallen: right. It doesn’t matter. So you gotta think of a teen’s world or most people world, the word depressed, and it’s a six sided box. Four walls, top and bottom.

[00:23:17] Jonathan DeYoe: Yeah.

[00:23:18] Elliot Kallen: And those walls are getting darker and darker and blacker. And blacker every day. And then one day that teen looks at that box of life and says, well, yesterday sucks. Today’s not getting any better. I don’t think tomorrow’s gonna be better either. No one’s gonna miss me anyway.

[00:23:37] Jonathan DeYoe: And

[00:23:37] Jonathan DeYoe: that’s it.

[00:23:38] Elliot Kallen: suicide.

[00:23:39] Jonathan DeYoe: Yeah. don’t know how you, do this on a daily basis, , and sort of hit this. Topic on a regular basis. , I know that for like the, a year after Dave died, I spent a lot of time talking to people and I was very open and, and a lot of people came outta the woodwork. Yeah. Happened to me, happened to me, happened to me.

[00:23:55] Jonathan DeYoe: Um, but I don’t know, three years, three and a half years in, if I kept doing that, [00:24:00] if I could keep holding my head up like it would be just so, there’s so much. So how close to it are you versus like more, you know, managing the, the organization

[00:24:10] Elliot Kallen: Oh, I’m very close. I give speeches all the time.

[00:24:12] Elliot Kallen: I’m interview, I’m interviewed all the time, twice a week, constantly on that. So this happens all the time. And you know, I look, I have my moments, but I also try to stay focused on the outcome I.

[00:24:24] Jonathan DeYoe: Yeah.

[00:24:25] Elliot Kallen: And so I’m trying to make a difference. And when it gets a little bit too great for me, then I go to the cemetery

[00:24:30] Jonathan DeYoe: Yeah.

[00:24:31] Elliot Kallen: and my wife has been just tremendous support, , on the whole thing.

[00:24:35] Elliot Kallen: , I’ll be like, I can’t come home right now. I gotta go to the cemetery.

[00:24:38] Elliot Kallen: She’ll be okay. We don’t have an argument about that , it’s been really interesting. my now 12-year-old moved in 10 years ago. Into our house shortly before. My son took his life shortly before and I become his guardian legal guardian. So [00:25:00] it’s been interesting having a, a young boy growing up there because I, as a grandfather, I believe you need to be in the moment with your grandchild and your children all the time. So sometimes when I’ve been in a bad place and he’s been there, he is been saying, grandpa, are you crying? And I said no, or a little bit, and I’ve talked to him. So he has been an incredible help for me to stay in the moment and realize there is an outcome here that you are affecting and you need to focus on that.

[00:25:29] Jonathan DeYoe: Yeah,

[00:25:30] Elliot Kallen: Uh, but it’s, it’s pretty interesting. I’ll tell you a good story if you got a moment here,

[00:25:33] Jonathan DeYoe: sure. Go ahead. Go.

[00:25:34] Elliot Kallen: , he was about five and when I became his legal guardian and we decided that we were gonna take him down to Universal Studios. , in LA because I grew up on all these cool horror movies, black and Whites Wolf, the Wolf Man and Frankenstein and Creature Front of Black Lagoon and pretty harmless as today. They’re not like your head being blown off with gut and brains and all that stuff. Matter of fact, Dracula, you’d never actually see [00:26:00] Bella Lago bite the neck.

[00:26:01] Elliot Kallen: That’s how pathetic it is on that. So I kind of, when he was five, that’s about the age that my babysitter got us started on that. So I started to put on. A little bit of Harry Potter, a little bit of creature friend of Black Lagoon, and I talk him through it, Frankenstein. And so instead of him being scared out of his mind, I talk him through it and say, see that actor Boris Karloff or Bela Lugosi watch, I’m gonna put out another movie he’s in and try to explain that it’s a movie.

[00:26:27] Elliot Kallen: It’s not real,

[00:26:28] Jonathan DeYoe: Yeah.

[00:26:29] Elliot Kallen: But he became fascinated with the Mummy and all that. And so that’s when we decided to take up to Universal Studios. And then shortly beforehand. We were in a backyard, I would say about a month before we’re gonna Universal Studios. And he said, grandpa, where’s Jake? Where is he? Because he wants to know where he is. So you can’t just say, well, he is gone. You gotta come up with something. Well, I happen to be Jewish and we, Jews don’t believe in hell. We believe in heaven. Maybe this is hell. I don’t know, but I’m not sure. So we, so I said, [00:27:00] well, he’s in heaven. And he is like, well, where’s heaven?

[00:27:02] Elliot Kallen: And I said, we’ll look up, and you see all those clouds and you see the blue sky and sometimes they’re great clouds and it’s raining. That’s heaven. And he’s always there and he’s always smiling down on us all the time, 24 7. He’s watching you sleep, he’s watching you eat, and he’s very happy for you. So, okay, he asked me that a few times. First few times I had tears in my eyes. I mean, that is a tough thing

[00:27:29] Elliot Kallen: to explain to a 5-year-old.

[00:27:31] Elliot Kallen: Where is he? And then I took him to the airport to get on a plane with, with his grandmother, my, my wife. And we get on a plane and we give him the window seat and he says, grandpa, I’m gonna look in the clouds and see if I can find Jake and see if he’s really smiling.

[00:27:49] Jonathan DeYoe: Yeah.

[00:27:51] Elliot Kallen: Those are tough moments.

[00:27:52] Jonathan DeYoe: Yeah. But , they’re the moments that make , life. I

[00:27:55] Jonathan DeYoe: mean, that’s, that’s the reality of it all.

[00:27:57] Jonathan DeYoe: , I kind of want to pull the two strings together a little [00:28:00] bit. H so? Massive loss. Action taken. How did the loss and then the action you take, how does that affect the other side?

[00:28:09] Jonathan DeYoe: Like the prosperity, how does it affect the business and the relationships you have with clients, and did you see that shift at all? We talked about it a little bit before we started,

[00:28:16] Elliot Kallen: Well, it made me a more, a good question again, Jonathan. It’s made me a

[00:28:20] Elliot Kallen: very empathetic individual. So when I sit down with people, we talk about what’s important in life, instead of how much money you’re gonna have for retirement, what are you gonna do? Let’s talk about this. The average retiree watches four to six hours of TV a day. Are you gonna be that person? Are you gonna be more purposeful? Are you gonna want to create some type of charity? The charity could be your children, the charity could be your church The charity, could be whatever’s important to you. It’s not my charity, but, what’s important to you. We talk about that .

[00:28:50] Elliot Kallen: And so that’s so important to have those conversations with on charity. , but empathy and then understanding how to deal better with their children. I’m obviously better at dealing with [00:29:00] their adult kids sometimes than they are.

[00:29:03] Jonathan DeYoe: Yeah.

[00:29:03] Elliot Kallen: So we talk about that too. , , in other ways it made me a little bit intolerant. So , there are men who walked in my office , and they would whip out a picture on her phone about some new woman that they’re having an affair with because it’s a shining new toy to them. most times I didn’t pass judgment, like, all right, well, whatever.

[00:29:21] Elliot Kallen: You know, if whatever works for you, and I wouldn’t pass judgment, and now I’m at the point of just say, okay, how do you like your estate? So let’s cut it in half. How do you like having a, your relationship with the kids? Let’s get rid of the next two years of that relationship because they’ll be so mad at you.

[00:29:37] Elliot Kallen: I,

[00:29:38] Jonathan DeYoe: Yeah.

[00:29:39] Elliot Kallen: so I try to show them how important things, how other important things are, and to think this through a little bit better.

[00:29:47] Jonathan DeYoe: It’s an interesting point because obviously, so that specific example, it’s horrendous, right? Obviously. . But on a finer point, it’s like we have gone through this whole process with people, hundreds of families. We [00:30:00] kind of know how things unfold. We’ve seen the actions that lead to divorce.

[00:30:04] Jonathan DeYoe: We’ve seen the actions that lead to poverty. We’ve seen the actions that lead to really close, tight-knit families and, and happiness and long-term success, not just financially, but life success. I think people hire us for technical skills. I don’t think that’s what we do. Like, I think it’s more about the soft skills, , the empathy, the, hmm, let’s really be curious about that decision.

[00:30:28] Jonathan DeYoe: , maybe that’s not the right choice to make right now. What do you think about that? I mean, why do you think people hire us to begin with? And then B, , um, what is our circle of competence? What is it that we really bring to the table that’s of value to the clients that we work with?

[00:30:40] Elliot Kallen: I think you’re right that the soft sell is a soft sell.

[00:30:43] Elliot Kallen: I don’t think everybody agrees with that. I could tell you that I have clients and it’s all about the math.

[00:30:48] Jonathan DeYoe: Yep. financial planners, especially as they go through the CFP program and they come out very math oriented. I. And they kind of get the emotional chipped away from them that, oh yeah, clients want this, clients want that. [00:31:00] You know, I just had lunch before this with one of my larger clients and I brought him in, but he seemed to fit the personality of my partner, who was very math oriented, and they talked about that. we talked about, Hey, let’s get back in good graces with this gentleman. And we went out to lunch and we’re talking about the math, and I stopped the conversation. Over a sandwich. And I said, I have to ask you a question. You have grandchildren, right? He goes, of course I do. You know that? I said, how come we never talk about them? And he stared at me for a while. He said, what would you like to know about ’em? I said, are they important to you? He said, they’re everything to me. I said, well, then let’s talk about it. And so now we sit down and we go to lunch every, other month. And we sit down and we don’t even talk about the math until , the last one third of the meeting.

[00:31:47] Jonathan DeYoe: Yep.

[00:31:47] Elliot Kallen: We talk about what the children are doing, what sports are playing, and how’s your health and what are you doing when he’s got some health issues? What are you doing with your health and how can I help you and what do you need?

[00:31:57] Elliot Kallen: You know, and things like that. So that’s what becomes important. [00:32:00] Now, where it becomes difficult is when somebody crosses that line. ’cause they know you’re helping them and that they are blowing through their money at an alarming rate and they’re mad at you for their actions. I’ve got one of those calls I’m probably gonna make this afternoon or tomorrow morning. And they’re probably gonna be mad at me and I hope I don’t lose ’em as a client and a friend. ’cause I like ’em in both capacities. they can’t sustain that,

[00:32:23] Elliot Kallen: what they’re doing, He called me up the other day and said, do you think I need to get another job? And I said, I think you do.

[00:32:28] Elliot Kallen: You’re blowing through money too fast.

[00:32:30] Jonathan DeYoe: yep,

[00:32:30] Elliot Kallen: It was a million dollar retirement and I used 10% of it up in a first year retirement.

[00:32:35] Jonathan DeYoe: No good. Yep. In my experience, that’s the most difficult, conversation to have, is you have to spend less. The

[00:32:40] Jonathan DeYoe: only way you’ll make this last is you have to spend less.

[00:32:43] Jonathan DeYoe: , and as we’ve sort of been writing on this, I. I dunno, two decade of great market performance and who knows what’s to come.

[00:32:49] Jonathan DeYoe: So it’s maybe that conversation’s probably more important now than it’s ever been.

[00:32:53] Elliot Kallen: It will come back and I, I have full confidence it’ll come back forgetting who’s president or whatever.

[00:32:58] Elliot Kallen: , because I, I’ve been doing this [00:33:00] 30 years and I’ve watched it come back all the time. , and it might take three months and it might take two years. I don’t know, but it, it will come back. And you don’t wanna keep the people in behavioral finance, you wanna keep the people invested because of behavioral finance. They wanna run while other people are going the other way. So , they tend to make the wrong decision constantly on that.

[00:33:19] Jonathan DeYoe: For sure. I mean, that’s one of the things we talk about the most is the behavioral stuff because it’s, you know, , I’m just a coach. All I am is a coach. So there’s, there’s a, uh, ton of noise out there and I ask every guest to sort of simplify something for us. And I think if you’d be so kind, I.

[00:33:34] Jonathan DeYoe: I’d ask you to simplify the operational impacts of loss, sort of specifically if you met with someone who has lost a child, or a sibling. Or a parent. And feel free to answer this whichever way you want, either from personal experience or from your lens. As an advisor, what is one thing they should focus on that’s gonna help them get to the other side

[00:33:55] Elliot Kallen: there are some people that will never get over this ever. you never get rid of the hole in your heart when you lose [00:34:00] a child, but you need to put one foot in front of the other and focus in on who is still remaining,

[00:34:05] Elliot Kallen: who is still alive, who can you have an impact on, and get beyond your own grief.

[00:34:10] Elliot Kallen: It’s really tough to do. I could tell you that Jake’s mom, I got a call from my daughter in August. He died in January of 95, and my daughter calls me up at college and said, dad, you gotta go to mom’s house now. We were divorced a long time already at that point, and I said, why I can’t do that. I’m the ex-husband, I can’t do that. He said, mom just told me that she’s going to the cemetery. She’s gonna bring some pills and she’s gonna commit suicide on top of his grave. Now she’s got another set of twins besides Jake who died. couldn’t get that in focus at all. I called her up, I said, what is going on? She said, I can’t deal with it anymore. I can’t. I said, you have two other children. You gotta get your act together. I said, I’m gonna drive down there right now. We’re gonna 51 50. You into the hospital.

[00:34:56] Jonathan DeYoe: Yeah.

[00:34:56] Elliot Kallen: can’t do this. You can’t be like this. , your children will get [00:35:00] over losing their sibling to suicide. They will, they will move on with families, but they will not get over ever losing their sibling, followed by their mother.

[00:35:10] Elliot Kallen: Ever. Can’t do that. And so it took her quite a while, including electroshock therapy to get over it. And she can’t come to any of my events she can’t relive it over and over,

[00:35:23] Elliot Kallen: but she goes to the cemetery quite a bit.

[00:35:25] Jonathan DeYoe: Yeah. so I mean, it’s true that everyone gets over, it gets over, it’s the wrong word. Everyone integrates it in a different way, in a different path, but is there any single tool that you can point to or tip that you can point to something going through it that is not universally but almost universally supportive or helpful

[00:35:42] Elliot Kallen: I love counseling for people by the

[00:35:44] Elliot Kallen: way.

[00:35:44] Jonathan DeYoe: Yeah.

[00:35:45] Elliot Kallen: I think counseling is really important, I think. I don’t think they’re all with the right counselors. They’re, you know, in the United States we do one kind of counseling. We do what’s called the hearing counseling. You speak, I hear that’s the US method of counseling.

[00:35:57] Elliot Kallen: That’s what they teach at all the psychology [00:36:00] classes, patient speaks, you hear you help them heal themself. Well, not everybody can heal themselves, but that’s the American way. Some people do need to be heard. Some people need a hug.

[00:36:13] Jonathan DeYoe: Yeah.

[00:36:14] Elliot Kallen: And some people need to heal to hear the words of saying, you know, Jonathan, today I want you to go to the library, go get a book out on healing, go read the first chapter, put it back and go home, stop at the cemetery, and then go home and put on your favorite movie. But that’s not what counselors do.

[00:36:35] Elliot Kallen: They’re telling you to take action, and counselors in the US don’t usually prescribe action.

[00:36:40] Jonathan DeYoe: People, need their friends to point this kind of stuff out. But their friends, I mean, I, I remember my friends trying to help out. Clueless, like had no idea

[00:36:46] Elliot Kallen: Very hard.

[00:36:47] Jonathan DeYoe: Yeah. Impossible.

[00:36:49] Elliot Kallen: don’t know what to do either. And, I’ve told everybody who said, what do you say? people were saying the stupidest things to me like, well, you know, he is in a better place. I said, no, the best place is right next to me.

[00:36:59] Elliot Kallen: or [00:37:00] he’s in heaven, or God needed another angel or, or whatever.

[00:37:04] Elliot Kallen: And I said, no, don’t say

[00:37:06] Elliot Kallen: these things to me.

[00:37:07] Elliot Kallen: Just say I am sorry.

[00:37:08] Jonathan DeYoe: Yep.

[00:37:09] Elliot Kallen: Just say I’m sorry.

[00:37:11] Jonathan DeYoe: play the, uh, piglet part next to Winnie the Pooh. That’s all you need.

[00:37:14] Jonathan DeYoe: Just, just sit with me, bear witness,

[00:37:17] Jonathan DeYoe: you

[00:37:17] Elliot Kallen: Yeah. And allow that person to grieve

[00:37:20] Elliot Kallen: a little bit. Now, granted, I get it at some point you can’t, be dumping on your best friends with grief forever and ever. You gotta get your act together, but they’ll help you along the way. But then you do have to get your act together with counseling and with trying to put one foot in front of the other. Look, I, you know, people who’ve lost their spouse

[00:37:38] Elliot Kallen: and they never remarry, they can never get over the grief. But a lot of people who lose their spouse can find a way to move on and meet somebody wonderful in their life. Doesn’t have to replace that person. It’s just another person.

[00:37:50] Jonathan DeYoe: we talked about one thing that when people can do to sort of get past things, what’s one thing that people try to do that fails? Like, what’s something that people, you know, think if I just, like, for me, [00:38:00] I went back to work too soon.

[00:38:02] Jonathan DeYoe: , it was really, it was dark. Like you said, put one foot in front of the other. Start being active. Right? Very active. And that wasn’t, it wasn’t time yet. Like I had to stop and pull back again. , what’s one thing that people often try to do that doesn’t work in terms

[00:38:14] Elliot Kallen: I think the first thing you need to do is allow yourself to grieve,

[00:38:17] Jonathan DeYoe: yeah.

[00:38:17] Elliot Kallen: give permission to yourself to feel sad. That doesn’t mean you’re fighting depression. It just means you’re grieving, you’re sad. It’s a sad place to be

[00:38:25] Elliot Kallen: and, and then at some point say to yourself, I can’t get rid of my grieving, but I can begin to move on with my life.

[00:38:31] Jonathan DeYoe: Yep.

[00:38:32] Elliot Kallen: And that’s a really good permission too, to

[00:38:35] Elliot Kallen: do. So if you could do those two things, then then focus on some positive things. But don’t forget you’re grieving. You know you lost your brother. I could tell you that you and I go to a movie theater and it’s a show about a brother who dies in that show, you’ll be a mess.

[00:38:49] Jonathan DeYoe: Yep.

[00:38:49] Elliot Kallen: You’ll be a total mess. And I probably will too. If it’s about a show, child died, you know? Oh my goodness. There’s a movie called The Champ. With John Voight. I don’t know if [00:39:00] you, if you remember that show, he’s a boxer. . He’s over the hill boxer. He’s never been successful as a boxer, but he’s got a little boy who’s about eight that he’s trying to raise and do a good job with.

[00:39:12] Elliot Kallen: And Faye Dunaway is his ex-wife, and she’s brutal on him. , it’s a horrible divorce and she’s brutal and he’s doing everything to be in his kid’s life, and he decides the only way he could be in his kid’s life. He’s to box again, to get in the ring to make his son proud of him. But he’s got brain damage.

[00:39:30] Elliot Kallen: He can’t, he’s been told by doctors, you can’t do it. And so you can see this story developing in a really bad way that he just wants to get in his kid’s life. And his, his ex-wife is too angry to let that happen. . He gets in a boxing match with a guy. Legitimate boxing match, a sanctioned boxing match. And he convinces Faye Dunaway to allow his son to be in his corner. And of course he gets hit too many times

[00:39:56] Jonathan DeYoe: Yeah.

[00:39:57] Elliot Kallen: and he dies

[00:39:58] Elliot Kallen: in the ring. [00:40:00] You can’t watch that.

[00:40:01] Elliot Kallen: I can’t watch that. This little kid is going around to everybody’s jump hitting him saying, please wake up my daddy.

[00:40:10] Jonathan DeYoe: Yeah. Jesus.

[00:40:11] Elliot Kallen: Those are things that you should not put yourself through.

[00:40:14] Elliot Kallen: Things that will cause more grief than not.

[00:40:18] Jonathan DeYoe: Yeah. No. Notice your triggers and stop. Like,

[00:40:20] Elliot Kallen: Yeah. And so, you know, it’s hard for me to even talk about those movies ’cause I won’t watch ’em anymore.

[00:40:24] Elliot Kallen: , or of the show that was on, I think it was, , about several dynamics of the family that just was on the air the last few years. They had, the parents had died in an accident and it was the next generation type of thing.

[00:40:35] Elliot Kallen: and they kept having flashbacks to the parents. I like, I can’t watch this.

[00:40:38] Jonathan DeYoe: Yeah. No, that’s terrible. , you seem like a pretty open guy, but is there anything that people don’t know about you or, , that you really want them to know?

[00:40:44] Elliot Kallen: no, it’s not. I am very open, I’m very transparent not afraid to talk about, just about any subject out there, good and bad on that and beliefs and why I believe that. And be open minded to, maybe I’m wrong too,

[00:40:56] Elliot Kallen: ’cause you need to be like that too. But, I’ve given myself permission [00:41:00] that sometimes I just need to be alone at the cemetery.

[00:41:03] Jonathan DeYoe: Yeah, it’s good. It’s good to have that, you know, the knowledge and then the location, like the, I need to be, have space, and here’s the space. Here’s where I go to have

[00:41:10] Jonathan DeYoe: that

[00:41:10] Elliot Kallen: And by, and by the way, Jonathan, this conversation doesn’t change at the cemetery. , when I went through Muslim counseling, the counselor said, you should never ask your son your dead son for forgiveness, because he took his life. You didn’t take yours. He owes you an apology.

[00:41:25] Elliot Kallen: Well, he’s dead. That’s a silly comment. He’s dead.

[00:41:29] Elliot Kallen: And so I go and I apologize. And my apologies. How did I miss it?

[00:41:34] Jonathan DeYoe: Yeah.

[00:41:35] Elliot Kallen: I had a psychologist in my office, talking about the charity a few years ago, and she said, , you know, you can’t use the word, commit suicide because commit is a term of a crime and everybody’s dropped that. I said, well, I get that. I understand that part of it. So I said, they took his life, and he said, you really shouldn’t say that either. I said, what should I say?

[00:41:54] Elliot Kallen: Now, this is a trained psychologist with a degree said You should [00:42:00] mention that your son had a successful suicide. And I like, I stared at her. I said, never ever say that phrase,

[00:42:09] Jonathan DeYoe: Uh, yeah, to me again,

[00:42:12] Elliot Kallen: goodness. There it’s

[00:42:15] Jonathan DeYoe: insane., I like to ask this slide, it’s not a zinger. , you didn’t get a chance to listen to an episode, what was the last thing you changed your mind about?

[00:42:22] Elliot Kallen: probably with my wife. You know, I, my wife is, is the person who keeps me grounded. she’s Jake’s stepmom and she’s great. She’s a partner in business with me. and she comes from a world where she grew up on welfare in Michigan. I. Her dad died when she was four, and he was a barber.

[00:42:39] Jonathan DeYoe: Hmm.

[00:42:40] Elliot Kallen: Four kids at that time. They were broke, you know, shoes once a year, holes in the floor of her car where they’ve lifted her feet up when you drove over a puddle. She has very strong memories, so she’s very good at grounding me and saying, you know something, sometimes you just need to walk through the garage and knock through the front door and humble yourself.

[00:42:59] Jonathan DeYoe: [00:43:00] Huh, interesting. I want to ask what that reference is to like , when do you walk through the garage versus the front door? I.

[00:43:06] Elliot Kallen: , you know, knock on wood, I’ve had some really good success. I got a top podcaster. I’ve got two 500 million dollar financial organizations. I’ve started some other companies I’m working on starting another company now on the side.

[00:43:17] Elliot Kallen: ’cause I have. At least an hour and a half of free time a week to put into it. , she knows that’s just, I’m a highly driven person. , there are so many people that give me wonderful praise for things I’ve done. Like you’ve done very nicely to me that she’ll just say, you know, your ego is so big. Go back outside and walk through like a man who’s got a lot of foibles , through the garage door.

[00:43:38] Jonathan DeYoe: Yeah, that’s it. That’s probably good. Keep, keep you humble. It’s

[00:43:41] Jonathan DeYoe: good. Yeah. Yeah. So thanks very much for coming on the podcast. I’m gonna make sure all this stuff’s in the show notes. How do people find you? Where do they go?

[00:43:48] Elliot Kallen: The best place of the charity is Elliot, E-L-L-I-T at a brighter day Info 5 1 0 2 0 6 11 0 3. The website is a brighter day.info. [00:44:00] Great, great. Thousands of pages of information. We’d recommend to recommend that to anybody who’s wants to try to keep the child outta crisis. Maybe they themselves are struggling as a parent with their own shtick. From their own parents and now it’s really come out and they don’t know how to deal with it because if they don’t deal with it right, they’re gonna give it to their kids and they’ll just , continue this multi-generational dysfunction.

[00:44:23] Jonathan DeYoe: Stop the cycle.

[00:44:24] Elliot Kallen: Stop the cycles.

[00:44:25] Jonathan DeYoe: Thanks Elliot, much appreciate your time.

[00:44:27] Elliot Kallen: My pleasure. Thank you so much for having me on.

[00:44:29] Outro: Thanks for listening. Full show notes for each episode, which includes a summary, key takeaways, quotes, and any resources mentioned are available at Mindful Money. Be sure to follow and subscribe wherever you listen to your favorite podcast. And if you’re enjoying the content and getting value from these episodes, please leave us a rating and review ratethispodcast.com/mindfulmoney. We’ll be sure to read those out on [00:45:00] future episodes.